Ancient Rome is the only society in the history of the western world whose legal profession evolved autonomously, distinct and separate from institutions of political and religious power. Roman legal thought has left behind an enduring legacy and exerted enormous influence on the shaping of modern legal frameworks and systems, but its own genesis and context pose their own explanatory problems. The economic analysis of Roman law has enormous untapped potential in this regard: by exploring the intersecting perspectives of legal history, economic history, and the economic analysis of law, the two volumes of Roman Law and Economics are able to offer a uniquely interdisciplinary examination of the origins of Roman legal institutions, their functions, and their evolution over a period of more than 1000 years, in response to changes in the underlying economic activities that those institutions regulated. Volume I explores these legal institutions and organizations in detail, from the constitution of the Roman Republic to the management of business in the Empire, while Volume II covers the concepts of exchange, ownership, and disputes, analysing the detailed workings of credit, property, and slavery, among others. Throughout each volume, contributions from specialists in legal and economic history, law, and legal theory are underpinned by rigorous analysis drawing on modern empirical and theoretical techniques and methodologies borrowed from economics. In demonstrating how these can be fruitfully applied to the study of ancient societies, with due deference to the historical context, Roman Law and Economics opens up a host of new avenues of research for scholars and students in each of these fields and in the social sciences more broadly, offering new ways in which different modes of enquiry can connect with and inform each other.

A bold application of economic theory to help provide an understanding of the role that law played in the development of the Roman economy

The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity.Peter Temin, one of the world's foremost economic historians, argues that markets dominated the Roman economy. He traces how the Pax Romana encouraged trade around the Mediterranean, and how Roman law promoted commerce and banking. Temin shows that a reasonably vibrant market for wheat extended throughout the empire, and suggests that the Antonine Plague may have been responsible for turning the stable prices of the early empire into the persistent inflation of the late. He vividly describes how various markets operated in Roman times, from commodities and slaves to the buying and selling of land. Applying modern methods for evaluating economic growth to data culled from historical sources, Temin argues that Roman Italy in the second century was as prosperous as the Dutch Republic in its golden age of the seventeenth century.The Roman Market Economy reveals how economics can help us understand how the Roman Empire could have ruled seventy million people and endured for centuries.

In this, the first comprehensive survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. They reflect a new interest in economic growth in antiquity and develop new methods for measuring economic development, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately.

A critical element of economic performance from antiquity to the present

Roman law as a field of study is rapidly evolving to reflect new perspectives and approaches in research. Scholars who work on the subject are increasingly being asked to conduct research in an interdisciplinary manner whereby Roman law is not merely seen as a set of abstract concepts devoid of any background, but as a body of law which operated in a specific social, economic and cultural context. This context-based, 'law and society' approach to the study of Roman law is an exciting new field which legal historians must address. This interdisciplinary collection focuses on three larger themes which have emerged from these studies: Roman legal thought the interaction between legal theory and legal practice and the relationship between law and economics.

Law and Economics deals with the economic analysis of legal relations, legal provisions, laws and regulations and is a research field which has a long tradition in economics. It was lost after the expulsion of some of the leading economists from Germany during 1933 to 1938, but then revived in Chicago. Both the subject of Law of Economics and the need for a concise Encyclopedia is particularly relevant in Europe today. Currently in the European Union there are several different legal cultures: the Anglo-Saxon legal framework, the German legal framework, which for example also includes Greece, and the Roman legal family—three jurisdictions which have to be covered with one and the same theory. In the EU, the task of the European Commission to interact with the various European jurisdictions means different legal cultures collaborating and some degree of harmonization is necessary. The result is an immediate need, if only for the science, to show how a given problem is solved in each legal tradition and jurisdiction. This Encyclopedia provides both a common language and precise definitions in the field, which will be useful in the future to avoid misunderstandings during harmonization of EU Law